FEDS TARGET FISH-BLADDER SMUGGLING; 7 CHARGED

Federal prosecutors in San Diego said Wednesday they’ve charged seven people over the past two months for engaging in an unusual but highly lucrative smuggling trade involving the air bladders of an endangered fish that lives in Mexico’s Sea of Cortez.

The bladders of the totoaba (toe-TWAH-bah) fish can fetch as much as $10,000 or more on the black market abroad, U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said at a news conference at the federal building downtown.

It is highly sought for use in a Chinese soup and is also prized for its supposed benefits for boosting fertility, skin vitality and circulation.

Since February, seven people have been charged with smuggling the bladders, trying to cross from Mexico into the U.S. One man arrested last week, 73-year-old Song Shen Zhen, was found with 27 bladders in his vehicle at the Calexico Port of Entry, officials say.

Investigators with Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service later found Zhen had what Duffy described as a stash house for fish bladders in Calexico. There they found an additional 214 bladders spread around the floors of the otherwise empty house.

Total value of the haul was pegged at $3.6 million, depending on the black- market price.

Federal officials have seized 529 bladders since February at the border from Shen and six others. This is the time the species spawns in the Sea of Cortez and is most vulnerable to poaching. It is protected both in Mexico and, since 1979, the U.S.